So many people seem to have a magic formula when it comes to teaching:
If everybody just did this, then it would all be better.
Bad teachers will become good teachers. Good teachers will become great teachers. Students wouldn't fail. Progression stats would improve. Student satisfaction would rocket to 100%.
We should all use this acronym. This model. This form.
Every teaching session should include these three key elements...
...each mapped onto fourteen different domains...
...and cross-referenced with these twenty-eight competencies.
Here is my forty-five-tab spreadsheet you should all use. I will explain it to you through a series of four-hour workshops spread throughout the term and we will spend the rest of the year checking that you are all using it. After all, it worked so well for me it is inconceivable that it wouldn't work equally as well for everybody else.
Except that it doesn't. It never does.
These magic formulas are whisked in from some other University in the enthusiastic back-pack of a new line manager. And they are whisked out again whenever someone new takes the job - because oddly enough nothing has changed. Bad teachers are still bad teachers. Students still fail. Progression stats still worry. Student satisfaction is still not perfect.
The only difference is that everyone is just a little more tired and a little more confused than before. Some of the good teachers have actually left.
Then the whole process starts over again.
It is tempting to think, simply, that good teachers are good teachers. Somethings they get bad results, sure, but that is not evidence that they need to change everything they do.
Bad teachers are bad teachers too. Sometimes they get good results, sure, but that is not evidence that we should all do everything they did.
But then, perhaps I'm completely wrong. Perhaps I just haven't understood. Perhaps I should sign up to the workshop - then it will all become clear.
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